Media Expres

NGO -- Data și ora publicării: 29.08.2003 10:08:00

ACC-COPYRIGHT FEES / ACC suggests to cut down the copyright taxes to 1.5%

Bucharest (MEDIA EXPRES) / August 24, 2003 /The Communications Cable Association (ACC) suggests that the copyright fees should be cut down to 1.5 per cent of the total income of the cable companies and that the payments by all cable companies should be made to one single collective society, according to a document sent to the Guvernment in the latter half of August, 2003.

The quoted document shows that ORDA, the Romanian Copyright Office, initiated an Emergency Ordinance to modify and complete the Law no 8/1996 for copyright and neighboring rights. This ordinance has received a positive review from the concerned authorities and is presently filed with the Government. Under the circumstances ACC would like to submit to your attention the cable operators? perspective, so the final decision on the copyright law changes to be made in the best interest of the country.

The ACC arguments are as follows: for current legislation most of the 10 per cent of the copyright tax and 3 per cent of the neighboring rights (paid out of the gross cable companies? income) ultimately go outside the country, because most of the broadcasted productions are owned by foreign companies. Consequently, very little money goes to the Romanian artists.

These taxes also add to existing programming rights paid to the channels? owners or broadcasters, which makes the combined rights up to 40 per cent of the cable companies? turnover. Moreover, many of the transmitted programs are not tailored for the Romanian market, they are not translated or dubbed into Romanian, which makes paying supplementary rights not justified.

According to ACC, the Romanian 13 per cent of the copyright tax is also not only too high for the existing economical context of Romania, but the highest in Europe. In Check Republic for instance, copyrights and neighboring rights are 0.5 per cent, and in Hungary 1.8 per cent.

Also, the 13 per cent stipulated in the Romanian legislation allowed an increasing number of copyright collecting societies to ask for copyright taxes, to such an extent that Romania presently has the highest copyright taxes in Europe.

The ACC conclusion was that, given the increasing number of collective copyright societies, the current collecting system supervised by ORDA proved inefficient, both for the cable users and for the copyrights? beneficiaries.

Cable companies are deeply involved in strategic investments, being in the process of either attracting new capital, or reinvesting the existing profits (or both) in order to be financially capable to build new infrastructure and modernize the existing networks. A better quality infrastructure allows a better quality of service towards customers, and the introduction of new services including broadband content/internet and telephony alternatives.

A quality infrastructure would cost Romania up to 1 billion Euros. Increasing taxes slow down the process, and also affect the rates for the customers. ACC considers that the government should incentive a growing industry, instead of taxing it.

In summary the existing law exports capital out of the country, restricts the building of the infrastructure, affects the rates for the cable consumers, allows constant demands from an increasing number of copyright societies and also forces the highest copyright rates in Europe.

Considering the above, ACC suggests that the maximum copyright and neighboring rights should be of 1.5% out of the gross monthly income resulted exclusively from cable TV programs? retransmission. This will align the Romanian copyright tax to the rest of the neighboring countries in Europe.

Payment by all cable companies should be made to one single collective society (under the Ministry of Culture) ? a common money collecting entity for all domains, that will ultimately divide the amounts among the copyright beneficiaries, according to ACC. The advantage would be an effective tax collection, and a fair distribution among copyright associations done by the Ministry of Culture. Furthermore, this unique fund would allow payment to the rights holders that are not officially represented yet.

The Romanian Government shall make a determination if the priority of the country is to incentive the development of the telecomunication infrastructure (able to provide more services, and to increase penetration in the teritorry) or to export capital with no relevant benefit for the Romanian artsits, customers or economy at large, is also shown in the ACC document.
(MEDIA EXPRES)

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